JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet has rejected proposals for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and sought changes to the plans, a government official said on Friday.
Details of the proposed truce were not released, but the Israeli official said the Jewish state wanted modifications before agreeing to any end to hostilities. Hamas has yet to respond to the proposed ceasefire.
More than 140,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza by the fighting, many of them seeking shelter in buildings run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Thirty-three more Palestinians killed, taking toll to 822
Mediators hope any truce in the Gaza Strip will coincide with Eidul Fitr and are looking to overcome seemingly irreconcilable demands from Israel and Hamas-led fighters, locked in conflict since July 8.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said Turkey and Qatar had proposed a seven-day halt to the fighting, which had been relayed to Israel by US Secretary of State John Kerry while Hamas considered it.
Netanyahu has said a truce should also lead to the eventual stripping of Gaza’s rocket arsenals - something Hamas rules out.
“We must stop the rocket launches. How this is done - whether through occupying (Gaza), or broadening (the operation), or (international) guarantees, or anything else, I have to see it with my own eyes,” said police minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch.
The rockets have sent Israelis regularly rushing to shelters and dented the economy.
A Hamas rocket intercepted near Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt American commercial flights to Israel’s main international gateway. Some European carriers followed suit.
33 KILLED: As the diplomacy continued, so did the fighting.
Israeli strikes killed 33 people on Friday, including the head of media operations for Hamas ally Islamic Jihad and his son. This put the number of Palestinian deaths in 18 days of bloodshed at 822, most of them civilians.
Militants fired a barrage of rockets out of Gaza, triggering sirens across much of southern and central Israel, including at the country’s main airport.
The Gaza turmoil stoked tensions in the nearby occupied West Bank, where US-backed Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with Israel. Medics said five Palestinians were killed in separate incidents near the cities of Nablus and Hebron, including one shooting by an apparent Jewish settler.
On Thursday night, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza near the Palestinian administrative capital Ramallah - a scale recalling mass revolts of the past. Protesters surged against an Israeli army checkpoint, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Palestinian medics said one was shot dead and 200 wounded when troops opened fire.
Israel said an army reservist was killed in Gaza on Friday, bringing to 34 the number of soldiers lost since it launched a ground invasion of the territory on July 18.
Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2014
